ABSTRACT
Silence can nourish a story and establish a communication to be patiently saved in periods of darkness, until it is able to come to light in a new and enriched form. The method adopted in this chapter is that of an itinerary, a journey through many different cases which have at one time or another been studied for their problematic relevance to memory. St Augustine, in his fourth-century Confessions, observed the peculiar and bewildering nature both of memory itself, and of the relationship between memory and oblivion: memory is based on a self-reflection - 'I remember that I remember.' When one ventures into the universe of memory, one must be aware of the starting point of the itinerary – which may be very different from the destination – and the position of the travelling subject. To continue with the reminder that 'memory is more than words', music has much to teach us about silence.
